Journal Entries
Disempowered, life after Wilma
Posted Oct 31, 2005
After a week Fort Lauderdale is still pretty demolished, though it's coming along rapidly. Power is still out in much of the town-- I have none yet at home, but the camping gear comes in handy so I'm not nearly as inconvenienced as most are without electricity. No hope for buying a small generator, was laughed at in both St. Augustine and Tampa when we went searching for generators and gas cans. However, fuel is increasingly available, lines at the gas stations that are open, but not hours of waiting as they had last week. It'll continue to improve as power is restored to more areas of town.
Driving is insane, sporadic traffic lights, either they just blew away or there is no power for them. Theoretically each intersection is to be treated as a four-way stop, but 
this *is* south Florida.
Anyway, I can't complain. The storm was the worst I've been through since Andrew 13 years ago, my bed was vibrating--hell, everything was vibrating. The windows and door facing west leaked but I was able to cork 'em with towels so didn't have water damage. The truck lost a window in the topper, will be able to repair that with some acrylic one of these days. Didn't have water for a while, but it was running fine by the time I returned from St. Augustine Thursday evening.
The time in St. Augustine was perfect, gorgeous autumn weather and the crispiest blue skies imaginable. Jeff and I played tourist, ate well, drank the evenings away and went on a pirate/ghost sail. Magnolia Thunderpussy enjoyed being set free on the sea. Tampa was brilliant. Work went very well. I was treated like a princess, made a new friend, saw some fabulous jazz. All in all a great week, and I shall make sure I escape as soon as the house is buttoned up and all is secure following every future hurricane. This morning I heard that we're beginning a 30 year cycle of "hyperactive hurricane seasons". Price you pay for living in Paradise, I guess.
Must let someone else have a turn at internet now, but all is well, considering. Maybe I'll get home and the 
will work. That would be awesome. 
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Latest reply: Oct 31, 2005
42? HAH! 43 is the 'magic' number!
Posted Oct 3, 2005
Oy vey! The things I've learned today!
It's my birthday, 43 and not a regret yet (though I certainly wouldn't *argue* if my butt were to suddenly reduce itself to the size and shape it was 20 years ago, and the rest of my body to follow happily along)
Reality: We did jazz brunch. It was lovely. 30% chance of rain, and most of it was sunny/cloudy, breezy and gorgeous. There was Big Band--lots of Glen Miller 
I had ze beeg bottle o'wine to share with my friends. It rained, all at once, but we had my 3 beeg umbrellas, so that was ok.... until the band decided to break down! So we broke site, dashed for the car, headed for the Irish Pub right across from the beach. Good lunch, brilliant martinis
cider, irish coffees. Mid-afternoon, and a couple of friends had to break off towards other engagements.
So the rest of us came to my place. No prob-- I'd cleaned and made a 'fresh' start for *my* new year over the last couple of days. *I* had espresso martinis, of course. My other, *younger* friends had decaf tea. But that's ok, they have health issues they have to beware of.
Then things got real. *sigh*
My longest friend broke out the non-sugar, high protein snack bars that they all could eat, diabetics, thyroid-issues, and all, and she sliced a sampling up , arranged 'em on a platter, looked at me and said" You know you're getting old when your birthday dessert is powerbars."
I hadn't thought of it *that* way.
But, it wasn't *me* who ordered powerbars rather than tiramisu, so what the hell. I figure I'm just cruising along more smoothely than some of my more slender-butted friends, right?
Right???????
So then, shortly into the following conversation (where everyone had *opinions!* regarding the merits of the varying Powerbars, and they dragged out the 5 wrappers to compare ingredients!!!!!!) the disussion moved on to the value/high points/disturbances related to colonicss. Enemas with careful attention to the outcome, in other words.
Now, I *know* I'm getting up there, and I *know* (really I do, though some might say I'm in denial as far as not being a debutante anymore goes, but, hey, debutante has many options, but...... HOLY SHIT!)
What happened to all my friends over the last year??????
What Time Warp did they dance through?
How the hell did one year turn them from relatively stable, partying, 30-something-souls to Powerbar Sucking,High Colonic Opinionators *AND I DIDN'T NOTICE*??????
ARRRRRRRRRRGH!
*breathing now*
ok. I tend to be the most colorful amongst my friends. No prob.
I tend to be the least 'planned' amongst my friends. Also no prob, as their lives are sometimes fraught with unhappiness due to thwarted plans, rather than to things not going well.
But shit, when I was asked about my plans for the future I rolled out Odetta Flambeaux (which'll debut in another seven years or so, for when I'm 50(ish)! They *liked* the idea! And they're contemplating colics for their future highlights!
ARRRRRrrrrrrrrgh!
There's a misconnect somewhere. Is it in me?
Am I a dinosaur?
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Latest reply: Oct 3, 2005
Funny, the way the mind works.
Posted Sep 12, 2005
Last night my inner levy broke. For two weeks now my mind has tossed through a hurricane, sometimes right in the middle of the eye where things are just as calm and clear and ... unsullied, I guess, by the surrounding chaos. Sometimes I'm beaten about by a rain band, reading articles about Katrina's effects on the cities, the victims, the governmental response (and lack of response), and the responses of people, like me, who are only periphally impacted by the devastation.
Sometimes I get too full, I go into the eye. I've been working on my movie soundtrack, messing with photos, painting. I've gotten more accomplished than I often do in months.
I've seen all these images, really horrible stuff. I read things that are like an icepick to the heart, but somehow I'm able to maintain a certain emotional distance. The stuff gets in, but through a filter. Hell, I *know* what it's like to walk out of the bedroom into a house that's partially rubbled, where the ceiling kinda does a slow-motion collapse and you watch it from across the room while drinking coffee. I know what it's like to walk two blocks from home and totally lose your bearings because there are no familiar landmarks left standing. I know how to live without electricity for extended periods of time, and how to function under martial law. I know how to tell looters to get the hell out of my neighborhood, at gunpoint. I know how to live like that. But I don't know how to live in rising water and watch helicopters fly overhead, to somewhere else. For days. Until you die of f*cking starvation or dehydration. Good job, Brownie! I don't know how to live while being shuffled around from one goddamn cardboard 'place of safety' to another, at gunpoint, because you've gained media attention and you're not the kind of news government officials want people to know about. I don't know how to live like that. But now I *know* that that's the kind of government we've created for ourselves, over here. Time to change some karma, maybe? I hope so, because it's not how I want to live. I still can't get my head around all the thousands of people who *do* know how to live like that, forever, or who've died like that. I'm glad that they're being relocated to communities all over the country, too. They're not going to be able to be swept under the rug as an 'isolated incident', I don't think.
So my levy broke, and it wasn't all the stuff I've seen and read that did it. It was an animated cartoon http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/08/opinion/main827633.shtml
and a bunch of pictures of what's happened to people's pets that finally penetrated my mental bubble. I wonder if there's something wrong with me.
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Latest reply: Sep 12, 2005
Smacked upside the head...
Posted Aug 25, 2005
with compassion.
I read this in Daisaku Ikeda's "Soka Education". It gave me a whole new perspective on what compassion *is*, and especially on how to practice it.
*happy dance*
It's not *necessary* to turn into an insipid, unopinionated, beige, sapless 'nice' person in order to be compassionate. Wooooohooooo! I've been working on this compassion thing for almost three years now with varying degrees of success, and I think these words give me the tool to make it a consistent practice. 
(Well, maybe not on I-95 during rush hour, when the Automotive Harrassment Squad has a single purpose: to get in MY way, but the rest of the time.)
So, here it is:
"In the Buddhist view, wisdom and compassion are intimately linked and mutually reinforcing.
Compassion in Buddhism does not involve the forcible suppression of our natural emotions, our likes and dislikes. Rather, it is to realize that even those whom we dislike have qualities that can contribute to our lives and can afford us opportunities to grow in our own humanity. Further, it is the compassionate desire to find ways of contributing to the wellbeing of others that gives rise to limitless wisdom.
Buddhism teaches that both good and evil are potentialities that exist in all people. Compassion consists in the sustained and courageous effort to seek out the good in all people, whoever they may be, however they may behave. It means striving, through sustained engagement, to cultivate the positive qualities in oneself and in others."
I can do that. I can't *believe* I didn't see it before, it's so damned obvious once it's been pointed out. Heh.
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Latest reply: Aug 25, 2005
World Peace on an Individual level: A Plan of Action
Posted Jun 3, 2004
A couple of weeks ago, after months of listening to the news and ranting about the stupidity of the US government, I finally came up with a plan. Nothing about this plan is actually new or original; however, it's organized, implemented, and in progress.
It began with a proposal to three women who also chant Nam Myoho Renge Kyo in my district. They have each been chanting in excess of 15 years, and they have all spoken to me about the obstacles they keep meeting in changing their karma regarding some pretty basic life issues. Also, they have each discussed with me the difficulties they have in getting along with each other. That started my mental wheels to spinning, and here is the proposal I made to them.
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World Peace on an Individual Level: A Plan of Action
Lately I’ve been thinking a great deal about kosen rufu (the process of establishing the humanistic ideals of Nichiren Buddhism in society), how the members of SGI chant whole-heartedly for world peace, but sometimes find difficulty in applying the principles inherent in world peace to their own intimate lives. We all *know* with our minds that kosen rufu begins with ourselves. However, it’s easier to think of it in the abstract terms of politics, sharing of resources on a global level, having respect for nameless and faceless others than it is to make the personal, immediate changes within ourselves, and in the way we interact moment by moment with the people in our immediate environment who, right at that particular moment, are getting on our nerves.
I’ve been reading a lot about the power of collective thought, the way a group mindset will manifest itself in those aspects of our environment which *seem* to be out of our control as individuals. I’ve been thinking about the way to change those huge issues—the destruction of our planet through plundering its resources, and the war, which seems to be escalating increasingly out of control.
As an experiment I’d like to see just how far collective thinking can extend itself, when executed with deliberation and consciousness by a core group of four people who all share the same value set: world peace based in individual happiness. To help me succeed in this experiment I’ve chosen (or more correctly the universe has 
present-ed me with) three other women, all strong-minded, powerful, opinionated individuals who, like me, have a tendency to do things *their* way. It’s an interesting dynamic because we all know that we must get along with each other in order to achieve a greater good, and we all occasionally rub up against one another’s prickly bits because (in my opinion) we’re, each and every one of us, convinced that we know what’s right for us, and by extension it must be right for everyone else too. Not to suggest that we’re in constant strife, but rather, that we will all gain greater benefit if we learn to support one another by reacting as an extended ‘self’ with an over-riding common goal than by asserting our individuality *at those times* when a common goal is our intention.
So: The Experiment.
To begin, we must each make a personal and inviolable commitment to chant together for an hour each week. I think that the focus of this chanting should be for kosen rufu amongst the four of us, to create from our individual essences a model for world peace. This chanting is an interesting thing—no matter how out of sync a group starts off in being, it seems a natural outcome that, given the time and *practice*, we cannot but help to bring our voices together in harmony and rhythm, and if we pay attention to that simple, natural outcome, then it extends itself into the other aspects of our personalities where we have more of a vested interest in, or just a habit of maintaining. I think our group focus should be to be conscious of putting a few things first, in that moment before we react with our egos: that we ultimately are *partners* in creating a common goal, that we cannot achieve this goal without each other’s support, and that each of us will have equal, albeit different contributions to make towards that achievement and that we absolutely *must* learn to respond to each other from a baseline of respect and love, as if the other person’s “whacky idea” were our very own brainchild.
I believe that, once we’ve developed the habit, or karma, of working together in this way as a small group, we shall all personally benefit because this dynamic will inevitably leak into the interactions we have with people outside the initial core group. It’ll leak because it’ll work, and, though it’ll be work, I think the results will be an astounding manifestation of the Absolute Proof that is the gratification of our effort towards human revolution.
The second part of this experiment, as I envision it, will be to make our little chunk of kosen rufu grow. That could happen in a variety of ways: we could extend our core group by including other people who we have difficulty in dealing with productively, or, probably more effectively, we could share our experience and plant the seed for new core groups while, at the same time, branching into new groups of people we find ourselves rubbing up against and start fresh, but with validated faith in our capacity to overcome individual differences. An interesting aspect of this plan is that I don’t think it’ll take too long before the initial four of us will be hard-pressed to find people within our SGI organization with whom we have difficulty interacting productively.
I foresee the exciting engagement of extending our ‘personal kosen rufu’ into the rest of society who may not, for a variety of reasons, have any interest in chanting, and figuring out a way to stimulate the essence of our practice in the lives and behavior patterns of the rest of our (world) community. I’m confident that it can be done, simply because I’ve yet to run across anyone anywhere who *doesn’t* believe that the world would be a better place if people could just learn to get along with one another. The idea is nothing new. Putting it into practice—intensively, individually, and comprehensively—becomes a doable challenge.
I’d like to ask that my three kosen rufu partners keep a journal of our progress, including the struggles and triumphs of our journey, so that, when it comes to fruition we can jointly publish a guide to inspire others to follow a similar path.
Nam myoho renge kyo.
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I shall keep my journal here.
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Latest reply: Jun 3, 2004
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